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Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Kanata South Councillor Peggy Feltmate was among the first supporters of the recently-approved transit plan for the city, and is still confident that it addresses Ottawa's most serious public transit problems. In response to an e-mail sent to all of council, Feltmate was one of a few that responded, and she offered her comments on the process, and on the final product:

"Given the long term consequences of the decisions on the Transportation Master Plan, it was important that Council put in the time required to address every question that was raised.

"The plan and how the plan will be phased in make[s] sense. Priority is placed on addressing the most serious problems like congestion in the downtown and along the Queensway in the west end. How quickly we can get the light rail network built is a concern, but addressing this concern means making sure federal and provincial governments provide the funding we need, not continually reopening the plan.

"After the discussion on Carling as a light rail corridor, I feel people need more information on the difference between what is required for a rapid transit light rail route and a light rail route providing local service in a high traffic corridor. Some of the proposals led people to believe that it was possible to have rapid transit speeds for local light rail costs. Yet none of the examples mentioned provided that combination."

1 comment:

In the Transportation Committee discussions, the focus of her criticism of the Doucet/Leadman option was not the purpose of rail on Carling, but rather that it took away the funds for bus Transitway in her part of the city.

She said that her residents want transit investments now, and the only way to get that is to build more Transitway (whether or not the existing bus lanes are sufficient--the lanes, by the way, will be converted in to CAR LANES using transit funding!), even if it means rail will take even longer to get to the suburbs.

By the time it comes to actually building the first phase of the rail infrastructure between now and 2018, we may find that we don't have enough left, because we have spent too much on buses, bus Transitways, and bus stations.

Shame on Councillor Feltmate for pretending that this is an all-rail plan.